The point of this article is that we should be angry at what is happening; we should be angry that a student was assaulted, and that everyone is congregating to protect the accused attacker. False reporting for sexual assault is very, very low, and so while it’s true that the accused attacker is innocent until proven guilty, the flaw in our society when it comes to sexual violence is that the victim also must be considered innocent.

Instead, in order to preserve the idea that the attacker “must” be innocent, people do their best to discredit the victim, to blame him or her, to turn the tables so that it’s really the attacker who is being victimized by some immoral person who wants to ruin the attacker’s good reputation.

I agree with Renee–the best solution here is not to necessarily make changes to school policy (while that wouldn’t be a bad idea, it also wouldn’t necessarily solve much), but to raise awareness about this issue so that as we raise the next generation, they grow up understanding that sexual violence is never the fault of the victim.

Feminist parenting and feminist policy will help, but so long as there’s the attitude that we can’t raise awareness without presenting the perfect solution, we’re never going to get anywhere.

Of course you did. You have no personal, first hand knowledge of the situation and you have personal ties to the accused. It’s entirely unsurprising that you chose your relative.

its an impossible situation to be in, there’s no other choice you can make. Were I in your shoes, I’d likely do the same thing.

That’s a far cry though from the “she’s just a lying slut” type of false accusation Abyss is talking about.

Many people who believe that a false allegation has been made turn around and make false allegations of their own against those who were really raped. These people don’t get a free pass for the harm they do — even if they believe they are making a true allegation.

I’m sorry that you had to face such a grave decision. No one can know how they’ll act in any given situation until they are faced with it.

A relative of mine was accused of serious sexual abuse of a child. And I had to sit down and look into my soul about what I was going to do. And I concluded that the claim was false, for reasons I have to justify to no one but the Divine.

I still don’t know if I made the right choice. But, please, please, truly try to imagine a faceless, unknown, anonymous person accusing someone you trust with your life and body of rape. And it seems so wrong it simply cannot be true.

All school employees must treat children who report abuse with respect and model that respect for their students. If the alleged victim has a reputation as a bad kid that must not change the school’s approach. Being labeled a bad kid doesn’t come with magical protective properties. A child with a history of lying may be more vulnerable because rapists know the truth is likely to be dismissed as just another lie.

There should be no talk of false accusations unless the allegation has been proven false. Instead of speculating about false accusations, school employees can express their commitment to having investigators find out the truth whatever that is and to protecting children from harm.

School employees should acknowledge that their feelings that an allegation is false are meaningless. Unless the school system is corrupt nobody would hire someone they wouldn’t be shocked to hear had been accused of rape.

To begin with, I found the quote you posted to be an area Cara wanted to see changed rather than a proposed solution. “How can we teach students that unquestioning trust is dangerous?” in addition to “What can we do to stop the disbelief cycle?” and “How can we give children the tools to see the nuance between good and evil?”

The question underlying all of these is, of course, “Why do all these people feel the need to defend the alleged abuser?”

I don’t want to get didactic, so I’ll only pose a quick idea to get things rolling. I think a part of the underlying issue comes from the fact that rapists and sexual abusers are among the only people left that are dehumanized as a social rule. From childhood we are taught that they are The Other, sub-human, predators. You aren’t supposed to know a rapist, to have talked and smiled with one, to have cared about one, to be the responsibility of one. I imagine to have done these things, even unknowingly, feels like a betrayal, in a very deep and fundamental way, not only of yourself but of everybody you know. And so they deny that it could possibly be true, because that’s the only way they can live with themselves.

As I said, only an idea. I have no experience with this sort of situation. If I ever become a parent, to counteract such an influence, I would try my best to teach my child that there is no Other. That nothing a person can do can make them less than human. That no matter how heinous the actions of a person it does not exempt them from compassion.

Alright, enough of that for now. Lost is almost on. I’ll be back in an hour.